This invention relates to the field of universal remote control devices and associated remote controllable appliances.
Universal remote control devices (URC) are widely used to control more than one remote controllable appliance from a single unit, rather than having a separate remote controller for each appliance. Frequently the manufacturer of a device, apparatus or appliance such as a television, video cassette recorder, or digital video disk player, for example, will include a URC with the appliance, and provide instructions as to how to program the URC to control additional appliances, especially when the additional appliances are of a different brand. To program the URC to control additional appliances the user generally must use a paper look-up table in the instruction book, or follow the written instructions which sometimes instruct the user to use a liquid crystal display (LCD) or other display on the URC during the programming process. Frequently the user will lose the instruction booklet, and at other times will have difficulty following the written instructions which, of necessity, are often complicated due to the complexity of programming many possible brands and models of several types of appliances.
According to the present invention, a method and apparatus are provided which allow a user to program the URC by following menus displayed on or voice synthesized by a remote controllable appliance, such as a TV, VCR, or other remote controllable appliance which can generate display or voice. Some benefits of this technique are that it allows the user to get visual feed-back from the display or audio feedback from the voice generator to make the URC programming process easier. The invention allows easy programming even if the instruction book is misplaced, can save the need for printing instructions by the manufacturer, and avoids the necessity of manufacturing an LCD display on the URC.